A Friend Is Here And Gone

It was the end of a harsh Chicago winter when Randy came into my life, and just three short seasons before he went out again. I met him because he was dying. I had no idea what he would mean to me.

As I interviewed Randy for an article I was writing about people with AIDS, our conversation turned to the losses he had experienced since being diagnosed. The worst, Randy said, was the loss of friends.

``Some are afraid of what you`ve got, and some can`t face what`s going to happen to you, so they just sort of drift away,`` he said.

In an instant I decided if AIDS could lose a person friends, it could bring him one also. Full of ignorance and enthusiasm, I said I would like to be his friend.

We began casually, visiting a different neighborhood restaurant each week. Every third week he faced three days of chemotherapy to treat the Kaposi`s sarcoma lesions that covered his body, and every four weeks he had another treatment to ward off pneumonia.

He dreaded these procedures. He needed company, distraction, a few laughs to prepare for the ordeal. So we agreed to have a fortifying snack before each treatment. We talked endlessly, about the past, about what happens after you die, about which toothpaste tastes best when you`re having chemo.

By the time summer came, I understood that Randy`s greatest wish was for love. Abandoned by his mother and raised most reluctantly by an aunt, he ended up in trouble again and again. When he became old enough to deal with being gay, his family relationship disintegrated.

Seeing that our house held the family he longed for, I invited him in. Randy became our babysitter. My 4-year-old and 7-year-old found him the perfect companion. He was never in a rush, he was always ready for a picnic and he could sit on a park bench all afternoon while they played.

As the summer progressed Randy`s health improved daily. The loathsome treatments eased his symptoms. By fall he felt well enough to work part-time. He bought a stereo set with his earnings. He was happy and busy and I was pleased he didn`t have time to see me. We made plans to get together after Thanksgiving.

At the end of November, though, a stranger, Bob, called to say Randy had gone into the hospital on Thanksgiving Day with a raging fever from a viral infection. After two days he went into a coma. As executor of Randy`s ``living will,`` Bob instructed that the respirator be disconnected. Ten minutes later Randy died.

The following day, Bob found my name and phone number among Randy`s possessions and called me.

Three days after Randy`s death, I passed a church with an announcement board saying, ``AIDS Memorial Service Today, 12 Noon.`` At once I was inside, joining 30 or 40 others.

Toward the end of the service, during the litany of remembrance, those present were invited to speak aloud the names of persons they knew who had died from AIDS. I listened. Charles. James. Andrew. Mark. Edward. Michael. Scott. All these were gone, and Randy was gone, too. With the dagger of grief in my heart, my throat closed. I held him fast in my memory, but I could not speak his name.

When I met him in the early spring and decided so easily to be Randy`s friend to the end, I thought I understood the cost of AIDS. By the time early winter brought reality, it was clear how little I actually had known. I will never be ignorant again.